Sean Spicer, Reince’s buttboy, got Press Secretary:
“Top transition aides will serve as senior members of the incoming White House communications staff, including Republican National Committee strategist Sean Spicer as press secretary, President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday.
Spicer, Hope Hicks, Jason Miller and Dan Scavino will all serve in the West Wing as assistants to the president. Hicks will merge Trump’s legislative agenda with communications, with her formal role being strategic communications director. Miller will lead the administration’s communications efforts as communications director, and Scavino is in charge of social media as social media director …”
I’m not exactly thrilled about it, but it is only White House Press Secretary. Trump’s core team – Hope Hicks, Jason Miller and Dan Scavino – all got communications posts.
Kellyanne Conway will be a senior counselor:
“WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster and strategist who helped guide President-elect Donald J. Trump to victory in November, will be appointed counselor to the president, becoming the highest-ranking woman in his White House, the transition team announced early Thursday.
Ms. Conway, who took over as campaign manager in August, shortly after Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination, guided her candidate through a brutal and divisive campaign, often appearing on television to vouch for him during periods of scandal or controversy.
In a statement, Mr. Trump said Ms. Conway would continue her role as a “close adviser,” responsible for helping to carry out his priorities and deliver his message from inside the White House. …”
No real surprise here. This is already the status quo.
Carl Icahn will advise Trump on regulatory reform:
“Wall Street maven Carl Icahn will advise President-elect Trump on matters of regulatory reform, giving the famed investor a key say in how his own industry is monitored.
Icahn will advise Trump on regulatory topics as an individual, not as a federal employee and won’t have any specific duties, according to a release from the Trump transition team. But it’s clear Icahn and Trump agree on what needs to be done – reduce rules. …”
Trump repeatedly name dropped Carl Icahn as one of his “killers” during the primaries. So, this too doesn’t really come as a surprise. It is nothing to be upset or outraged about.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Tea Party/Freedom Caucus fiscal conservative, got OMB:
“WASHINGTON — When the government was hours away from shutting down in 2011, Representative Mick Mulvaney gathered with his three fellow South Carolina Republican freshmen in a Capitol Hill chapel to seek spiritual guidance on how to vote on a measure to keep the lights on. The verdict: Vote “no.”
These tight-knit South Carolinians have since gone their own ways professionally. Tim Scott is now a senator. Trey Gowdy became a conservative hero as he led a House committee to study the 2012 attack in Benghazi. And Jeff Duncan has become a social media voice for the right.
On Saturday, President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would nominate Mr. Mulvaney, a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — the group that led the takedown of John A. Boehner as speaker — to be his budget director. “He’s a tremendous talent, especially when it comes to numbers and budgets,” Mr. Trump said in a statement.
In Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Trump has chosen for the Office of Management and Budget a spending hard-liner to join an economic team that could be ideologically in conflict, setting up possible collisions during major policy-making next year. …”
Mulvaney sucks on immigration. This could be a problem if he becomes a penny pincher on the Trump Wall. Then again, it is unlikely that key issue will come down to a Mulvaney budget.
Peter Navarro is the most interesting new pick:
“WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump on Wednesday named a strident China critic, Peter Navarro, to lead a new White House office overseeing American trade and industrial policy, in the latest sign that Mr. Trump is moving to reshape relations between the world’s two largest economies. …
Mr. Navarro, 67, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who holds a doctorate from Harvard, is the only credentialed economist in Mr. Trump’s inner circle. He is the author of a series of jeremiads, including a 2012 documentary film, “Death by China,” in which an animation of a Chinese knife stabs a map of the United States and causes blood to run freely. Mr. Navarro has said that China is effectively waging an economic war by subsidizing exports to the United States and impeding imports from it. Mr. Trump, influenced by Mr. Navarro’s work, described this on the campaign trail as “the greatest theft in the history of the world.”
Mr. Trump has said he will persuade Beijing to change its policies by applying pressure, including designating China a currency manipulator; enforcing existing trade laws more vigorously; and, if necessary, imposing a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports. In a statement, Mr. Trump described Mr. Navarro as “a visionary economist” and said he would “develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores.” …
A wide range of economists have warned that curtailing trade with China would damage the American economy, forcing consumers to pay higher prices for goods and services. Experts on manufacturing also doubt that the government can significantly increase factory employment, noting that mechanization is the major reason fewer people are working in factories.
Mr. Navarro’s appointment reinforces a basic division among Mr. Trump’s economic advisers. The people he has chosen to oversee trade policy, Mr. Navarro and Wilbur Ross, another billionaire investor, both favor increased trade restrictions. …”
Sounds exciting.
Erick Erickson was bitching this morning that Trump appears to be serious about his views on free-trade.
Note: Michael Brendan Dougherty and David French are right though that the #TruCons got a lot more out of the Cabinet than we expected. We will wait and see how that plays out next year. If Trump, Bannon and Miller are calling the shots on strategy and policy, it might not matter much.
Navarro–another Orange County (CA) pick. There’s a relatively large OC contingent forming in Trump’s cabinet.
Glad Conway will be involved. She’s a bit old for me, but I’ve got somewhat of a crush on her.
She is well preserved. I’d hit that if I was 10 years older.
Vulgar.
Is that your way of saying you wouldn’t?
It’s my way of saying your statement is vulgar, and has no place in any intellectual discussion.
Which intellectual conversation?
Miss Kelly Anne, though a Jersey girl, has that Southern girl girlishness to her, that, even when she is 80, will make her fetching.
Yes, she is definitely what those low, vulgar types refer to as a “MILF”.
Conway is a weak link, she’s a typical weak Irish Roman Catholic bullshitter. Not impressed with her on immigration, and the Semite threats. Navarro, otoh has been at it for long time, and I’m glad to see he is being recognized. For decades he was the only major academic who argued with the neo-liberals-neo-conservatives on trade issues. Good man.
She’s half guinea, raised by her NJ guinea family. Her irish father wasn’t in the picture.
She’s beyond annoying.
Ms. Conway comes across as a dingbat but actually she has been a pretty good press secretary for Trump. And I’m glad Trump is going to get tough with the chinks. They will respect him for it.
Miss Kelly Anne has to be a good pick.
She’s incredibly savvy, and having that near her, just like with Bannon, is going to help Mr. Trump deal with the NWO, who will be trying to destroy him, every dang day.
Miss Kelly Anne has this way of reading the bottom line, off your inner ticker, and then, with a smile and a wink, dispatching you with a quick rapier thrust to your gut.
She’s far more dangerous than is Bannon, who will, unwittingly, serve as a decoy duck for her…
Southerners should not underestimate their own appeal to conservative Yankees. Though they never got the slavery thing, the more powerful and intrusive FEDGOV gets, the more sympathetic they find the Southerners on the secession thing.
Not to mention those charming accents of yours. Some of you may be sick of hearing it, but a lot of Yankees are total suckers for Southern accents. And they are not thinking of Deliverance in-bred, hicks-in-the-sticks type of Southerners; it’s more along the lines of Patrick Swayze’s Orrie Main.
It’s only hardcore lefties who truly hate the South and its people. Unfortunately, they control the media. But whether they like it not, the South is leading the resistant White coalition by virtue of backing Trump over all the other Republican candidates so that he could gather steam and break the Blue Wall into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And he came damned close to taking Minnesota.
Sic Sessions on Conway. He obviously impressed Trump by his credentials and he looks as well as sounds like a sweet, soft-spoken man. Methinks he’ll have a lot of imput into this administration. I think the “true conservatives” are more window-dressing to keep their base somewhat pacified while Trump’s Trade Warriors go to town.
Yes, Clytemnestra – I have noticet for rural Yankees – particularly those from Western New York and Pennsylvania westwards, we do have some appeal.
I’ve seen it in the number of Midwestern Secessionists I have come to know, and i saw it at 3AM November 9 – on the electoral map.
And, yes – I have said many times, and written as well, that the first round of the new civil war between North & South was fired during the Republican Primaries – when the two candidates preferred by southerners, Trump and Cruz, stompt the other 14 New England Government establishment candidates.
And, yes – Senator Sessions is going to fire a second shot in the new civil war – by effectively ending sanctuary cities and by terrorizing those companies and universities that continue to support the demographick overwhelming of the natives.
A few hundred thousand deportations in a battleground state will, as well, hurt the Democrats, who have been planning to force the Southern White man onto his knees by the importation of every brand of international nigger.
Hell, The Left already has a new word for this ‘Authoritarian’ … i.e. – anyone who plans on following the law and executing it.
Concerning secession, I will say to you this : it is far beyond the present conceptual ken of the vast majority of ‘normies’ in this country, BUT, over the next four years, you are going to see a lot of people on the Left suddenly becoming persistent advocates of States’ Rights.
Then, the new States’ Rights movement will get another boost in the arm when Trump appoints a couple of Scalias to The High Yankee Court.
After that, you will see abortion, school prayer, integration, gay marriage, affirmative action, federal departments, and a host of other judicial activist decisions made in the last 70 years challenged by states and conservative issue advocacy courts.
and that will not only give a legal boost to States’ Rights, but, The resulting furor over this, by states like California and Vermont will, again strengthen States’ Rights.
For those of us in The South, who yearn to take back a good measure of what we have lost, suddenly every route we look down looks sunny.
10 years from now – this country is going to be on a very different footing than it is now, and it is going to occur with out a single shot gunpowder battle.
I see it coming.
Mark my words.
Merry Chrystmas.
“After that, you will see abortion, school prayer, integration, gay marriage, affirmative action, federal departments, and a host of other judicial activist decisions made in the last 70 years challenged by states and conservative issue advocacy courts. and that will not only give a legal boost to States’ Rights, but, The resulting furor over this, by states like California and Vermont will, again strengthen States’ Rights.
For those of us in The South, who yearn to take back a good measure of what we have lost, suddenly every route we look down looks sunny. 10 years from now – this country is going to be on a very different footing than it is now, and it is going to occur with out a single shot gunpowder battle.
I see it coming. Mark my words.”
Oh, Sir, I hope so. And I am one of those Minnesotans who voted for Trump.
Dear Father,
Thank you for your reply and encouragement. Thank you, too, for having joined us, in the Rural and Smalltown-man’s Revolt of 2016!
Tremendous opportunities are opening up for us in the Trump Administration – opportunities to use exclusively legal means by which to so disgust the denizons on The Left that, in the course of the coming years, that there will develop a ‘fleeing demographick’, from many states.
The Left, if I understand them, are simply unwilling to live in our world.
I sympathize with them, because, I, too, share that unwillingness to live in theirs.
At the risk of being a broken record, I pray ye to talk States’ Rights with your fellow Gopher countrymen, and encourage y’all’s legislators, whenever possible, to stand with Missi’ppi and North Carolina – for our two states have an ironclad grip on our state governments.
Please encourage your fellow local Leftists to begin thinking of the country in terms of a reconfederation. Encourage their despair, whenever possible.
Cheerfully point out the absolute impossibility of living with racists, frackers, Confederates, anti-semites, climate-change deniers, misogynists, heterosexuals, Klan, single-payer healthcare antis, loggers, homophobes, gleeful coal-burners, alpha-males, capitalists, AR-15 owners, cigarette-smokers, and bible-thumping lunaticks!
In this way, seed by seed, policy change by policy change, we will cultivate a soil – the natural course of which shall break apart the unholy backroom trinity of Rothschild/Washington/London – and, in so doing, wrest back our lost sovereignties.
God bless you and Merry Chrystmas!
Yes, Southern secession even appeals to some of us most horrible New England Yankees with our most horrible accents.
You’re the first I have known, Mr. Whitaker, and I lived up there with y’all for 12 years.
That said, I’m happy to make your acquaintance.
The only reason I detest your culture is because of y’all’s determination to make us heel to y’all’s ways.
Get rid of that, and I hare no problems with y’all’s culture – as I love Nathaniel Hawthorne, the decrepit Victorian towns and ghost stories, the Yankee Candle Shoppe (hate the name) and the incredible spruce and snowbound landscape!
Merry Chrystmas!
Much of the “yankee meddlin” gets back to the Puritan influence. Being raised a Catholic (in the days before Vatican II) I was spared much of that. New England is my home and I love it (despite the rotten political climate) the same way you love your Southern Lands.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Yes, Mr. Whitaker – you are exactly right ; something about The Puritan Spirit has hung about the land and dominated the culture.
I’m glad you love your land, and, once we are separated by a renewed States’ Rights, I will be very happy to come and visit y’all’s lovely lands, as will be my wife – because we won’t be pisst off anymore with y’all.
Be that as it may, I ain’t pisst off with you. You’re right fine as you are.
Thank you for you holiday wishes for us, They’re much appreciated.
I’m wondering how many illegal aliens or non-citizens with green cards really did vote in this election? Oregon used to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens and in Oregon when I got a drivers license there I was automatically registered to vote…and the ballot comes by mail. How many illegals and green card holders were being sent ballots?
Furthermore, say you actually cleaned out all the illegal aliens, possibly 40 million of them, and then audited the voter roles and removed non-citizens, dead people, people who moved, etc. I have a feeling some of these Western states might very well no longer go blue, Nevada, Colorado, Washington, maybe Oregon? Perhaps Virginia might go back too?
You understand women very well, Mr. Daniel.
Thank you so much, Mr. Kleinfeld.
Did you see Miss Kelly-Anne on The Rachel Maddow Show, last night?
She sat there, and, without thrusting at Miss Rachel (who was busy trying to make Trump look like a dangerous demonick ninny) parried thrust after thrust, with such ease and grace – never one moment catty or rancourous.
She was like the female Godhead of The Donald – A Garden State Steel Magnolia.
A gift from The Good Lord, above, is she…
The irony. The left complaining about lawsuits and financial retaliation!
I believe it was ol’ “Honest” Abe who might have been the first president to begin and wage a war against the press. There simply is no lie Liberals and Jews will not tell to push their agendas.
How right you are, Mr. Burns, about there being no limit to the lies.
And perhaps the biggest irony is yet to come : for as the states grow more and more individualistick, under The Trump Supreme Court, theLeftist clamour for the very States’ Rights that they declared neanderthal demonick, in the 1960s, will grow greater and greater, this as they grow more and more serious in their contemplations to find some way to segregate themselves from us.
Let me be clear – I defend their right to dream any way this wish, but, if they are living in North Carolina, they are going to be living by our ways and our laws.
And that’s that.
Merry Chrystmas to you and yours!
Yes, I am now starting to believe there might well be secession of states. The left will be the one demanding it. Another irony.
Yes, Mr. Burns – sublime irony; and guess what? : we need to give them (The Left) every encouragement, from supportive words (online), to recovering as many ‘repressive’ Southern state laws as we can.
We have a huge barrel from which to select, and I bet you just a few will get them rolling!@#$!
Meanwhile, let’s watch AG Sessions go to work on the minds of these people!
Merry Chrystmas, Mr. Burns!
Unrelated, but wanted to post this here because Clay Travis is a Southerner and I believe a lot of readers of this site can relate to him culturally. My friends, this is what a “normie” waking up looks like:
http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/all-that-and-a-bag-of-mail-122316
LOL, did you read the mail Travis posts? I wouldn’t sell the hunting property. Hell, find someone to help the old guy out. He was only reaching out for help to someone he thought was a friend.
Yes not the best picks. However he’s playing the game in Washington D.C. I’m not much for the “game” because it’s end result will do little for the People. Hopefully the “Trump Revolution” will result in even better candidates in future elections including the White House. A bunch of “Nationalists” who’ll reject the Neocons and have no tolerance for the enemy! WPWW !
Good Lawd, did anyone read Erickson’s dress-over-the-head screed linked to above? He basically argues, with his usual smug certitude, that it’s best for Trump to impose tariffs by executive order, not legislatively, so House Republicans can be free to run “I told you so,” anti-Trump campaigns “when the economy goes over a cliff!” He gives himself away with his language, “then the GOP can get back to orthodoxy.”
“Orthodoxy” is exactly what this comes across as, similar to how the Church persecutes a heretic more than anyone interested in giving something a practical TRY.
I swear, I don’t get this intense moral outrage from TruCons on the subject of protectionism vs free trade. If they give a shit about the Constitution as they claim to, they ought to damn well know it gives us explicit authority to regulate foreign trade, and the Founders were all protectionists.